


How to Make Every Mistake In the Book

by The_Accidental_Book_Thief



Category: Original Work
Genre: Complete, Poetry, Slam Poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-24
Updated: 2018-09-07
Packaged: 2019-07-01 21:58:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 1,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15782928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Accidental_Book_Thief/pseuds/The_Accidental_Book_Thief
Summary: This is just a collection of probably-pretentious poetry (yay for alliteration!) that I write and people I know tend to like. TLDR of this whole thing: I'm an angry teenager who's seen some stuff and decided they'd rather write poetry than actually call their therapist. Have fun!





	1. Alyssum & Jasmine

These days, I think about you a lot,

Which shouldn’t be a surprise, considering

This happens every school year but

It still hits me like a ton of feathers

Heavy

But still the softest thing there is.

 

These days, we don’t really talk

I saw you at the first football game our freshman year but you showed me your driver’s permit

And walked away

I told you I wanted to catch up and when you turned your back I almost cried

But when the band plays “Take on Me,” and the rest of the color guard is dancing that's just awkward

We haven’t spoken since

 

This Friday is the first football game of our sophomore year

And I wonder if you’re going to be there, but more than that

I wonder other things

Like whether you still write love poems to the girls you like that you never give them

Or if you still write band quotes on every notebook you own

Or if you hide in the library

Or listen to Girls/Girls/Boys on repeat like you used to

 

And maybe this is getting unhealthy

It’s been two years, after all, and I should have let you go by now

After all, things change

People leave or

Are taken or

Die, but

You aren’t dead

So why does this feel like an elegy?

 

I can’t help but think of you in past tense anymore

You’re a shade now in my mind

And I always picture you how you looked when you told me what your mother said when you told her who you were

Transparent like lily petals and all forced laughter and bitter like cocoa powder and 

I don’t know how to feel about that

 

We used to talk about how it sucked to be real

But now we both feel like fiction

And I don’t think that’s much better.


	2. Ghost

Ghost:  _ noun.  _ The apparition of a dead person that is believed to appear or become manifest to the living, typically as a nebulous image.

 

I think we died together.

I say  _ I Think  _ because to be honest there was too much sound and fury to

Ever be certain and I think

 

They stopped saying our true names-but then again they buried

Us in separate cemeteries so that we couldn’t

Come back to haunt them- I can’t ask you to confirm anything.

 

I think I remember what my mother said, what

My stepfather said, but I have no clue whether it would make my condition any

Worse to repeat it in a poem or whether

 

It would be healthier to just shove the words like pebbles in my pockets and

Just wait until they ruin the dryer to actually

Do something about it

 

Remember how we used to joke about being dead inside, because

That was just the  _ thing to do  _ in junior high and how

We would get kicked out of the classroom laughing our asses off because we were far too alive

 

Remember how your mother called you a liar, because no

Boy would ever play with makeup or

Dresses or

Barbie dolls and remember how you

 

Never cried because you had become numb at that point

Remember how we used to talk about you running for President as if that would erase 

Their ignorance and remember

 

Remember how they burned your notebooks in the backyard and you lost all of your matches

How you couldn’t enjoy watching paper burn anymore 

Remember how your art was ash

Remember how your stories were ash and how ironic it was that most of them were about fire

Remember how you joked about being dead inside but by the next day of school the panic attack wore you out and we never saw you again except in the poems you never deleted-

 

Ghost:  _ noun.  _ The apparition of a dead person that is believed to appear or become manifest to the living, typically as a nebulous image.


	3. "Surpassing the Love of Women"

We were David and Jonathan to each other, or 

Maybe even Achilles and Patroclus

But as everyone knows, Jonathan and Patroclus died

And in all of my sitting here wondering

How many times I can compare this radio silence to death

I still haven’t figured out

Which of us was which.


	4. Mourning

**Why is every damn poem I write about you?**

You’re not dead

You weren’t my lover, we were just 

Friends so why

**Why can’t I write about anything else?**

It’s been two years

And I feel like I should have let this go

Maybe it’s my meds making me ruminate

Sitting depression-style,

Because my stupid self hasn’t been to my therapist in ten months

Writing about crap we did in seventh grade like it was yesterday because I guess I kinda wish it was

And I hate myself

Because I know you moved on

Hell, you act like we never existed

And sometimes I consider writing you a letter

But you’d throw it away

You cut us off just like you cut off your hair and

**Why am I so angry?**

It wasn’t your fault; they made you do it

Took an X-Acto knife to your life like it was an emergency surgery

And performed a lobotomy while we all watched

And we still haven’t got the blood off of our clothes

 

There was a time when I wanted nothing more than to kiss away your pain

And now is the time I wish I could forget I ever wanted that.

  
  
  
  



	5. How I Lost You as Told By the Seven Stages of Grief

 

  * **Shock**



 

When I got home, my mother told me your mother had sent her a picture. She showed me a piece of trans pride art I had done and my heart went to my throat.

She yelled at me for twenty minutes. They went through my school computer, and they knew.

 

  * ****Denial****



 

You said you were fine. Said it was nothing you hadn’t dealt with before. I wanted to call B.S.

But I wanted it to be true so bad.

 

  * ****Anger****



 

I hated them for what they said. I hated them for their intolerance. I wanted to set everything on fire like they did to your sketchbooks, but I couldn’t do anything.

 

  * ****Bargaining****



 

Our mothers decided collectively to never let us near each other again. I was a bad influence. You were unstable. We were both hell-bound if we spoke before you fit in their mold.

 

  * ****Depression****



 

I never guessed how much this would hurt until I saw you in Walmart three months after   the incident. You family was with you. You were wearing makeup, eyeliner sharp enough to make my eyes bleed saltwater and my lungs lose all their air.

 

  * ****Testing****



 

I still don’t know how to think about you without cracking like fine china. I still don’t know how to forget the way your voice mesmerised me. I still don’t know how to forget the shape of the hips you hated so much, or the art that you made with unsteady hands that I just wanted to hold, or the way your handwriting was so messy I had to practice to be able to read it and when I could I loved you even more.

 

  * ****Acceptance****



 

I miss you.

 


	6. Ephemeral/Infinity

I remember once

In the sixth grade, we laid down in the field near the playground at recess.

There was nobody out there but us, and I think

You were wearing a pink headband.

 

It was one of those days when it’s a perfect 72 degrees

With no wind and a sky so blue you could dive into it

And come out with stained skin

 

You asked,

“Don’t you just love those perfect days where nothing has gone wrong

And the weather is beautiful?”

And even though you weren’t super specific

I knew exactly what you meant.

Everything that day was perfect

And we hoped it would be that way again.

 

That was four years ago.

Two years before tragedy.

Three years before I could write about it.

And an eternity away from the rest of the memories we made.


	7. Hanahaki

I can’t tell if I really love you 

Or if I just miss you

To be honest, the two feel exactly the same

 

So are the flowers in my lungs funeral lilies

Or bright red roses?

Maybe they’re both

Because the pain in my chest could only be explained by thorns

And the way I’m drowning in nothing

By pure white petals with massive leaves that choke the air from every room and

Push out tears from every eye

 

The only thing I know for certain is

That you’re not here

And I had to swallow the memories you left me.

They’re growing in my chest like some sick garden

And I’m vomiting them onto these pages in the hopes

I can be made well.


	8. Denial/Acceptance

I sent you a message on Pinterest the other day

I don’t know what I was thinking.

I guess I wanted to clear my conscience, or

Maybe I just missed you.

 

Either way, you never replied.

I don’t know what else I expected- maybe

I just sort of hoped that they never destroyed that part of you.

 

Maybe I was just stupid

But when you see light through the cracks in the doorway

You have to try and see through them

Even if you know there isn’t an escape, because maybe one day

You might be able to poke your head through to the outside and

Smell the fresh air.

 

Or maybe that’s what I’m breathing right now

Maybe I did come out of that dark room

But I don’t see you anywhere

Did you leave it behind, too?

Or did I break the only rule we ever set for ourselves?

 

~~In case I did~~

In case you're reading this

The message said

"I'm sorry."

 


	9. Emerald Skies

I remember when you wrapped the rainbow around my wrist

All starry-white rabbit-toothed smiles and hair the color of good soil

When I told you I was queer

 

You were emeralds to me then

All the green of creation, all the dark forests and renewal

And even though people made you lesser, you were deeper than diamonds ever hoped to be.

 

I remember how I fell for you, but really it was more like tripping.

I didn’t realize I was falling until I hit the ground.

But I buried my fingers in the dark earth and stayed there while you laid next to me in the grass.

 

I wasn’t your type, and we both knew that

You longed for the sky at midnight, and I was the scattered showers that covered up your stars

Still, I was poured out from Heaven’s water tower just so I could be closer to you.

 

The rainbow doesn’t sit there anymore-

Loss cut it off, and I have moved to other skies now

But I still think of you when I see your favorite constellations

 

Grass does not grow here, where I am

And I wonder if it’s because you left.


End file.
